


A Stopped Clock

by DaisyIfYouHave



Series: Overwatch 1.0 [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Found Family, Friendship, Gen, This is not the kind of vacation Tracer wanted in Numbani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-30 14:20:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11465358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyIfYouHave/pseuds/DaisyIfYouHave
Summary: Not again. Not again. Winston makes it his duty to retrieve Lena, and bring her back to herself, after a mission goes terribly awry.





	1. 20 Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Doomfist short, I hope to release chapters twice a week until completion! Comments very appreciated!

A pause, like a breath, and the sound of breaking circuits, and then, Tracer’s cry. That’s how he’d remember it, every night for the next six weeks. Less than one second. A single motion. Seconds were so long, sometimes.  Time didn’t obey its own rules.

He had asked her once, how it felt, at their traditional weekly family dinner, after a few beers and Lena’s accusation of stealing the garlic prawns out of the Chinese food again.

_ “Trying to distract me from your crimes, love?” She looked over at him with a teasing slyness. _

_ He reconsidered. “You don’t have to answer, It wasn’t fair to a--” _

_ “It’s like there’s a knife in you. And first, it might be made of ice, a really sharp cold, but then its as if the ice melts, and there’s nothing, nothing at all, and you realize that feeling that you can’t feel, is the nothing. It’s eating you.” She looked off into the distance and gave a shiver, her eyes drifting off into the dark. _

_ He put his hand on her back. “Lena--” _

_ She snapped out of it, shaking her head, and smiled at him. “Got off a moment.” She stood up in one bright bounce. “I’m taking all those Chinese doughnuts, then, and don’t you try and stop me.” _

He thought of the cold, icy nothing, and the faraway look in her eyes, as he watched her body blink and shudder in front of him, Doomfist’s triumphant smirk in the background, a king on his hill.

Winston wanted to say so many things. How he loved her. How he would find her. How he would anchor her again. How it would all be okay.

But he couldn’t say it. There wasn’t time for it. Seconds were so short, sometimes. Just a few terrifying beats as Tracer tried impossibly to reach him, her hand outstretched toward him as if he could stop the terrible tearing away of her reality, if she could just reach him.

But she couldn’t. It wouldn’t have helped anyhow.

Instead, she blinked and fizzled and gave a gasp as she ripped away from the world she knew, slipping back into the hell that had claimed her those years ago, that had nearly broken her, and with her blinked away the shared meals and movie nights and garish sweaters and what it meant to be someone’s best friend.  

_ The laboratory room, with its clear glass sides (Winston called it, joking at no one but himself, the bug jar) lit up bright blue, and he was shocked to see a small human being, lying like a pile on the floor in the middle of the room. _

_ It had worked. Despite everything, it had worked. _

_ Winston looked over at Mercy, who already had her medical kit gathered up, waiting to join him in the timelock, looking at him expectantly. This had never happened to any human before, as far as anyone knew, and her kit was nearly overpacked with all the possibilities she had prepared for. _

_ The timelock began to shut behind them, and Winston wondering at the commendation his superiors might give. They had said this was a near impossible mission, that Tracer was very likely lost, and without her they would never regain that Slipstream. Now, everything seemed possible. Pride swelled in him, at the hope of recognition. _

_ He walked over to the woman on the floor, and his hope for pride gave way to a growing horror, as she laid on the ground, shaking, her eyes unfocused and wide with fear, the only sound coming from her a tiny whimper. _

_ Mercy knelt beside her. “Lena? I am Doctor Zie--” _

_ She reached out and touched Tracer’s arm, and Tracer reacted immediately, an animal howl escaping her lips and echoing through the room, her body contracting into a tight ball. _

_ Mercy withdrew her hand, the room quiet again except for the sound of Tracer’s weak simpering sob, and Winston felt a low and hollow sadness for the broken pilot. _

It would be that way again, when he brought her back. No, it would be worse now. He knew her now. It would be worse as he remembered the bouncy and busy person Tracer was most days, that her eyes were never meant to be hazy and unfocused and frightened, but bright and expressive. That she was meant to be too excited to sit still, instead of too overwhelmed to move.

It would be so much worse, thinking of her laughter, and only being able to hear her whimper.

The thought rose in him like smoke through the air, until it filled him and all his sorrow converted to an immediate rage, something so powerful it blotted out every other thought, every learned proverb, every fact, and he could see nothing but anger and hate for the man who had done this.

He took off his glasses in a swift motion, tucking away the reasonable side of himself and allowing himself to explode into a feral roar of anger and of anguish, galloping toward Doomfist, dreaming of taking that  gauntlet and hearing the whine of the metal as it twisted in his hand, the joy of the popping and crackling of his bones as they broke beneath Winston’s fists, the sweet symphony of his screams for mercy, and how he would deny them.

_ “Nice to ‘ave a family meal, don’t you think?” _

_ He hadn’t had a family dinner since he escaped from the moon. He hadn’t expected to have a family to have dinner with, but here she was, sitting cross-legged on the end of the laboratory bench, sharing his Chinese food, inviting herself along and proclaiming it a family meal. And looking at him. Calling him family. _

_ He stumbled for what to say, but Tracer,never having known the gift she had given him, had moved on, her mind moving as quickly as the rest of her. _

_ “Think that delivery boy rushed out of ‘ere so I missed me chance to count these prawns.” She scowled into the takeout box. _

_ He had rushed out, as soon as he’d seen Winston, almost forgetting to take his money, extending the bag of food as far from himself as possible, reminding Winston, always, that he was not like them. He was not human. _

_ “People are always afraid of me, Lena.” He shrugged. “It’s understandable. They always will be.” _

_ She scoffed “I’m not afraid of you,” she shook her head as if she had been personally accused of it, and then smiled up at him. “You’re a very gentle soul, Win.” _

_ He could see in her eyes that she thought it was true. _

He rocketed toward Doomfist, about to make her a liar. 


	2. A Quality of Mercy

“Lena.” He called it into the microphone attached to his rickety patchwork machine, uncertain of whether or not it would work, certain that, even if it did, it could just be that split second, just enough to call her name, just enough to play some game of Hot and Cold over the wheres and whens of the earth.

It had been chance, last time, when she was found, he knew. Chance and Tracer herself, her irrepressible stubborn force that held her to life and drove her to find her way back. It took so much from her. They had said she wouldn’t recover. Winston had reflected, later, as they served together in Overwatch, that they simply hadn’t known her very well. 

It was an easy and glib thing to say, back then. Now it seemed in a looming echo in the back of his mind, the words harsher and more decisive.

He looked at her blanket, folded neatly in the corner where he’d put it. He hadn’t been prepared, the first time, he hadn’t known her, and what would help her, but now he knew, and this time, he would be prepared. He could help her when she came back. She wouldn’t have it so hard. He had her favorite pajamas and her heavy blanket and her stuffed sloth and that tea she liked. She’d talk again more quickly, this time. She’d know she was safe, and there was no bad news to give her, so everything would be okay this time, and she’d laugh again, soon, and he would hug her, and she wouldn’t be too sensitive for it, and….

He had always regretted, a little, that gorillas couldn’t cry, but maybe now it was a blessing, as he tinkered with the machine again. Nothing to cloud his vision.

“Winston?” there was a gentle touch on his back, and he turned around to see Mercy, bearing a large bowl of pasta. “I brought you something.”

Winston shook his head. “Thank you Angela, but--”

“I am promising you I did not cook it.” She gave a weak laugh, then looked down at her bowl. “Please, Winston. Just a few moments, is all I am asking.”  

_ Just a few moments more that she’s trapped between life and death, existence and nothingness, trapped in a place that almost broke her, that sometimes she-- _

Mercy laid her hand on his arm. “You will not be bringing her back tonight.”

From anyone else, it would have seemed cruel, but on Mercy’s lips it came with the sorrow and understanding of one who has seen pain in the world, and been unable to repair it, who has taken that guilt within herself and seeks only to relieve another of the burden.

He nodded. “Okay.”

They sat wordlessly at the table, Mercy, twirling her pasta around its fork, looking up at Winston occasionally as if she could find the words, somewhere, to ease his troubled mind. But she did not try,  simply sat with him. 

After all, she was not a miracle worker, as she often said. 

Winston stared off, beyond Mercy, his mind wandering back to that day. Funny, he had teased Tracer for doing the same thing, so often. But her mind wandered to what she needed to buy at the grocery store, or finding a tune in a car alarm’s pattern, or a nice thought she’d been having about what to get Jack for his birthday. She was surprised when he touched her arm and brought her back, but she always smiled.

His mind, though, simply came back to Tracer, and there was no smile to be found.

_ He’d walked back into the small locker room alone, after everyone else had changed. He didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want everyone’s reassurances, did not care for their empty thanks at the capture, did not want to see their careful glances at him, after they had pulled him off Doomfist. _

_ They were right to be careful. Winston would have killed him, left to his own devices, and that knowledge was a fear he tucked away as he put back on his glasses and returned to his own patient logic. _

_ His large, boxy locker was next to her small narrow one, and he stared at it as he opened his own, slipping back on his t-shirt and wiping his glasses thoughtfully. _

_ The lock was small, designed for tiny hands. Tracer hadn’t thought of that, when she’d given him the code. She often forgot how different they were, how unlike anything common he was. She teased him, calling him ‘such a bloody man sometimes,’ not knowing the high compliment she was giving him. _

_ He managed the lock with his fingertips, (He could have pulled it off with a sheer show of strength, he knew that for sure now, but he could never do that, not to Tracer, not to her things.) and swung open the door. _

_ Her clothes were piled on the floor of the locker in her usual hurried way, the bright blue shirt with the toucans on it practically glowing again the dark denim of her jeans like her CA in the dark. The thought rolled a wave of sadness and anger over him again, and he braced himself against the locker as it broke upon him. _

_ On the little shelf at the top was one thing, placed carefully, her chunky aviator’s watch with the engraving from her father on the back. One of the few things she always looked after. He held it against his chest, and sat on the floor, listening to it tick. _

“Winston.”

Mercy called to him, and her voice came like a word bubbled through water, faraway and muddled and somehow all around him.

He wondered if this was how Tracer would hear him.

He looked up at her and realized he was holding the watch, drawing it out of his pocket without even knowing.

“She used this, when she first started to blink. So she’d know how long she’d been gone.” he hit the button near the the top of the watch, the tiny dial measuring out each millisecond, the one under keeping track of how many seconds it had been. “Since it stayed with her. The first time she took it, she was so afraid it would break it.” 

“So she didn’t wear it into battle.” Mercy smiled and nodded. “She can be very sentimental.”

He laid it down on the table. “She made me buy a cheap one on online to try it with first.”

“You must be taking good care of it.” Mercy leaned over and touched his hand. “She will be very upset with you, if you don’t give it back to her in good order.”

He wanted to thank her for her exquisite kindness. The way she always showed such compassion for everyone, even members of the team she didn’t particularly like, and how she had gone out of her way to make Winston feel not so alone in this dark moment, but the words got caught in this throat like a tangle of spaghetti around a fork, and he found himself unable to say anything at all.

He simply held the watch in the palm of his hand, walked over to his buzzing, patchwork machine, and called into the microphone again. “Lena. Come home.” 


	3. A Face On the Water

 

Some years from now, (if time is to be trusted at all)  Emily MacNair will be lying in bed, dozing happily and dreaming of nothing at all. If she would be dreaming about anything, it might be how soft her sheets are, or how comfortable the house is, or how lovely it is to be lying next to her beloved girlfriend, and how very happy she is, as happy people often reflect on these things in the gentle arms of slumber. 

Suddenly, there will be a jolt next to her in bed, a gasp and a cry, and she will not quite understand what is happening, her mind still being on the theoretical clouds of how lovely the curry Tracer made last night had tasted, but she will feel Tracer leap from the bed, feel the room’s buzzing energy change as she unhooks her accelerator from its base and clips it tightly around her body, and it will come to her what is happening.

Whenever it happens, it breaks her heart anew. Her girl is bright and kind and sunny and scarred.

“It’s 3:46,” she will say, holding Tracer close on the dark wood floor, “on March 15th. We’re in London, in your little house, that’s always been yours, Lena. You’re here with me. I’m holding you, Lena, and ye aren’t going anywhere.”

Emily MacNair, formerly of Inverness and currently of London, will hold Lena Oxton, callsign Tracer,  formerly and currently of London, but with a bit of a vacation nowhere or nowhen at all, and gently stroke her hair, and repeat the incantation to the consistency of time, and Tracer will simply bury her head in her shoulder, her tears crossing each freckle as effortlessly as time passes through us all.

___

 

_ I don’t know if I’ll make it this time. _

These are the sort of thoughts that don’t normally occur to her. Not when she’d been shot, not when she’d been pinned down by gunfire, not when her plane had gone down. In all of those situations, she had simply thought that she would fight as hard as she could, and trust the Oxton luck, and live to have another pint, and see the sun rise again.

But this was nothing like that. This, in fact, was nothing.

She could never explain, not really, how it felt to other people. How the absence of things, accompanied only by an occasional flash of something, a moment of time trapped in the swirling storm, could tear you apart, how she felt herself becoming a ghost, eaten away bit by bit, like some sort of reverse Velveteen rabbit, made unreal.

The only thing she felt was a brush of cold, but she did not feel the goosebumps rise on her flesh, did not feel her flesh at all. She opened her mouth to scream, and instead the nothing poured inside her like an ocean of loss, licking and tearing at her insides like the dogs of time.

She never told Overwatch that it was the most exquisite torture method ever conceived. Perhaps a part of her was afraid they might listen.

She concentrated, as hard as she could.  _ This was how you did it last time, Lena. You can get places, you can get times, if you just focus hard enough. You can’t give up. _

**_I don’t want to focus. I want to die._ **

_ Well, you bloody well know that won’t ‘appen, so let’s try something else, shall we? _ She gritted her teeth against the quiet, small part of herself that doubted. Tracer’s doubt was weaker than most, as she tended not to feed it, but it flourished in the rich soil of nothingness.

The point was to get anywhere and anywhen familiar, now, to give herself a few moments’ rest and strength.

_ I’ll get back to Winston. I will. He’ll anchor me again. _

She tried not to think too hard about the going back, about the pain of every nerve in her body finally feeling again, the brightness of the softest light and the crashing boom of even the softest whisper. Winston had helped her ease back into life once, and he would do it again. Winston would take care of her, so there was no reason to be afraid. It would hurt for a little, and then it would be over. That was all. She could do that. She would.

She focused all of her attentions on her home, her strongest tie to the real world. Just to pop in. Just to know she could.

In what might have been 30 seconds or 3 years, the wheels and gears of time clicked into place for her, and the nothing fell away as she looked at a younger version of herself shivering on the floor of her bathroom, her head resting against her father’s shoulder, staring out into the hall.

“It’ll be alright, Lena bean. Just ‘ang on a moment more.” He put his hand under the bath water, checking it.

The softness of her father’s voice brought a lump to her throat. She remembered this now. She must have been what, 13, 14? She’d had a terrible fever, just awful.

“‘M cold.” The small her said, closing her eyes.

“I know love, but you can’t always trust yourself,” he dried off his hands and gently removed her from his shoulder, leaning up against the bathtub and tucking her under his arm, “We’ll get you a cool bath, and the paracetamol will work, and you’ll have a cuppa, get some rest, you’ll feel differently about the ‘ole mess.”

The Lena who was thirteen, who existed right now and 15 years ago and in the future, stared out into the hallway, and saw Tracer standing there. Her eyes swam with confusion and fever and a strange knowing, as she stared wide-eyed at Tracer. 

Tracer felt herself losing her grasp on the time, disappearing back into the nothing, unable to hold herself here much longer.

She drifted back into the darkness, as her father’s words faded on the air.

“It’ll be alright, Lena. You’ll be alright.”

She repeated it to herself like a prayer or a spell, over and over again, trying to ignore the desperate pain of not being.

_ Winston. _ She thought his name over and over, trying to focus on him, trying to find him.  _ Winston, where are you? When? _

The nothing slid a subtle knife into her side, a sharp, cold pain dwelling there, asking her if she really thought she would make it back. If she thought she wouldn’t be broken forever, an unwanted toy Overwatch could throw aside.

**_You won’t be useful to anyone._ **

_ That’s as may be, but Winston will take care of me. Winston is waiting. It’ll be alright. _

She hears them, soft and fuzzy at the edges, but they are there, and they surround her like a protective cloak. Winston’s words. Winston’s voice. 

“Lena. Come home.” 


	4. Lost and Found

 

“Lena. Come home.” He said it every 6 hours, like clockwork, whenever the full charge hit, and he could send his tiny second through time. If it was even working. It might be even more fruitless than previously imagined.

But still he said it, the one thing he knew he could do to bring her home. He had spent the last 6 weeks preparing the bug jar for her return, with a soft bed and gentle lighting, a few warm rugs and her slippers. He meted out these tasks daily, as if he could tell himself that she was only not here because he had neglected some detail of preparation. She needed her pillow, of course. And why would she even bother returning if he’d forgotten her well-worn Hammers shirt? 

That was it, just a missing detail.

He set the pictures of her and her friends and family at the edge of the bed. Another detail in place.

These past weeks had given Winston plenty of opportunity to think, to mull over every detail of that day, to wonder how he could have prevented it, to flip to fear that he might have killed Doomfist to regret he hadn’t to shame that he wished he had and back again. Time was a whirling morass, but so too was the human heart, and Winston found himself struggling with the dips and waves of emotion lapping at his heels daily.

He gently wiped a speck of dirt from the picture of he and Tracer in London. Their first vacation together. Joy showed in every molecule of her body, and he could feel how happy she had been even staring at a simple, flat picture. She had practically popped into the air like a tennis ball the entire week, her speech a rushing stream of excitement and laughter,  beaming with pride in every street and each pub as if she had built the entire city herself.

It was the first time Winston had ever gone anywhere simply to have fun.

The rage came over him again.

“I remember the first time I saw her.” Mercy’s voice chimed behind him. “Before I treated her for a sprain, even. It was in the mess hall. She was sitting with the other pilots, laughing, and spilled soup down the front of her uniform as she told a story.” She touched Winston’s arm gently. ‘She will return, Winston.”

The anger drilled a hole in him as he thought about that day, about Tracer’s joking as they rushed to the square in Numbani, about that terrible crackling sound of breaking technology, Tracer’s horror and fear, and the red that came over him, tinting everything. And Mercy. Mercy treating Doomfist before anyone else. Mercy packing his wounds. Like he deserved it. Like he hadn’t hurt Tracer in the cruelest way.

He withdrew his arm quickly from her, and she looked at him, puzzled, for a moment, and then sighed. “I know you are hurting, Winston. I would like to--”

“Go away, Dr. Ziegler.” He saw that terrifying red in the corner of his eye again, and tried to tamp it down.

“I am sorry I reminded you of--” 

He whirled around. “Why?! Why did you do it?!”

Mercy shook her head, hurt and confused. “Why did I--”

“Why did you help him!? After what he did?! You helped him before anyone else!” His teeth were bared now, a mix of anger and hurt and fear in him that he had known little of in his life, terrifying and powerful. 

Her pain and confusion faded, and she narrowed her eyes. “Doomfist? Because he was hurt the most badly, and I am keeping my oath to--”

“You shouldn’t have done it!”

“We must pursue justice with justice, Winston! And,” she hesitated a moment before saying it, knowing it would sting,”me letting him hurt would not have made you more able to be bringing her back. I will not compromise this.” 

Winston felt the rage pierced by the arrow of knowing it was true, that Tracer would have been lost in any case, that his anger at Mercy was only his mind trying to find someone to blame for his inability to return her to life, for the pain she would endure, and how he’d be unable to help that, too.

This is where Tracer would tease him about having no need to worry about being human.

Mercy nodded. “I will help her however I can. You will be bringing her back.”

Winston hung his head shamefully. “I’m sorry, Angela. That was...uncalled for.”

She gave a weak smile, and sat on the edge of the bed he’d prepared. “When my parents were killed,” she still said it in such a small way, as if she was still that child, “there was a neighbor, and her family lived, “She looked away from Winston, “she was recommended for early admission to university, but it was a narrow thing, and they were asking me what I thought. I knew her and the university and to be very young in the university, what it is.” She shook her head. “I told them no. I watched her get the letter, and cry. And I was happy. I wanted her to know even a little, how...we are all of us sometimes small, Winston.”

Winston looked at her moment. There was no part of him that could have imagined MErcy, of all people, the most moral person he knew, occasionally to a degree best described by Ana Amari was ‘impractical and irritating,’ could have done something like that. He wanted to beg her forgiveness. He wanted to thank her. He wanted to shed the tears he couldn’t give. 

But she asked none of that of him, simply gave a little sigh and patted the bed. “It is very soft. You have done well.”

“I miss her so much.”

The machine crackled and spit and charged in the corner. 

_____

 

It was never as controlled as she wanted it to be, no matter how many times she practiced it. And it wasn’t a thing that she had much practice at.

She had stopped, mostly, trying to think on her father, and her home. She’d been able to do it more easily, more reliably, but it was the time that was the problem.  The when is always harder than the where, she would tell an MIT class, years later (or was it next week?) and they would all laugh but none of them would know.

You could see things you never meant to see, she would tell them again, and she would grin, and they would laugh again, imagining parents in flagrante delicto, embarrassing childhood moments, and a million terrible fashion choices.

But that’s not what she meant.

You should never have to watch your father walk into your bedroom and fall to his knees, sobbing. But then again, your father should never have to bury you, so maybe they were even. Even here, the thought of seeing that again turned the stomach she didn’t have, and prickled the empty nothing that served as her spine.

She’d heard he died in the kitchen, a thunderclap heart attack, one brief moment in the blip of time that had permanently shifted the world Tracer returned to.

And so, happy enough to avoid having that memory along with every other, she had shied away from focusing on her father and her family, and moved to the work of getting home. While she still could. Before it took her. She could already remember things that she knew didn’t belong to her, things that had slipped into the holes the nothing had torn in her and clung to her mind. She was a maid in a fine house once. She dodged death working on a naval cutter. She flew in a raid over Germany.

All of things were false, but they felt true, and she recalled the smell of the sea on her face, the grain of the wood in her knee as she scrubbed the floor, the sound of the droning engine in the chill of the air. She was becoming time, and she was running out of it.

_ Winston. Winston. Winston. _ She concentrated on Winston, in the lab, right now, her lips moving over his name like a prayer.  _ Help me, Win, help me. While I’m still here. While I’m still Lena. _

“Lena,” it come from impossibly far away, but she honed in on it, “Come home.”

She threw all she had left of herself into the moment, hurtling her body toward his where and when, hoping that it was enough, that she would feel the incredible pain of every sense being lit up again, and be thankful for it. 

The lab. She felt it around her. She willed the shimmering blue of herself to visibility, and she and Winston exchanged a hopeful and terrified glance, as his eyes widened and he mouthed her name for a moment.

He sprung into action, faster than he knew he could move. 

“The room!” He ran next to the switch, ready. “Lena, go!”

She summoned up everything she had, every fiber of any being that she could possibly cling to, the rug of her humanity tattered and threadbare but it hadn’t taken her, not quite yet, not today or yesterday or any day that had existed in her, and she jumped into the room next to her, as Winston yelled for Mercy in the background, and stared into the room where Tracer leapt.

The switch flipped.

Tracer felt her body explode with the pain of a million sensations, all in one moment, collapsing upon her like a falling skyscraper. The light beamed so strongly it seemed to go through her, the soft buzz of the room was a jet engine to her ears, her brain lit up with the overwhelming sensations of life,  her mind desperate as a fluttering bird in a fireworks display, as the anchor of time came down on her.

She was home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments very appreciated!


	5. Present Day

The pain of nothing, and the pain of too much. The human mind is so fragile.

Tracer lay in a heap on the cold floor, every howl of agony she gave only echoing off the walls and digging back into her. Every neuron and synapse in her brain lit as if fueled by gasoline, her brain one intense beacon of terrible, painful light. She shook, her body trying to escape the pain but finding it was the same in all directions, every nerve twisted and pulled against the unbearable plush of her lined jacket, the grating pull of her spandex leggings, the agonizing pain of a friend’s gentle touch.

If Tracer could have been aware of anything but this pain, she would have heard Winston whispering, softly apologizing for everything he had to do to help her, would have heard the suffering in his voice and tried to control the display of her own. If she could have seen Mercy’s face, so sad in the way Tracer always hated, she might have smiled and cracked a joke.

But as it was, all she could feel were the twin daggers of tears rolling down her cheeks, every sense in her body screaming like the damned.

“Lena,” Winston whispered to her softly, even as he tried to stop himself, even knowing all it would do is hurt her, “I’m sorry.” He tried to gently take the front of the shattered chronal accelerator, which she had been clinging to all this time.

He wondered if she even knew she had been.

She whimpered weakly, and clutched it close, but lacked the strength to keep him from it, and he set it to the side, reassuring her that she was safe now, that she was back, that he had her grounded, ignoring the voice in his head telling him she couldn’t hear.

Mercy handed him a knife, but he shook his head.

“We can’t cut off her jacket. It’s one of her favorite things.”  

Mercy shut the knife, looking down into her medical case with the look of a woman who had told Tracer at least a dozen times not to wear a cherished item into battle for just this reason, and been ignored the same dozen.

He opened his mouth to tell her it would be uncomfortable, but considered that would not make it any easier, and simply tucked his hand behind her back. She reacted instantly, whimpering and bucking against it, and Winston had never felt more a monster in his entire life as he so delicately twisted her body out from the worn and scuffed leather.

He was right. It was all so much worse this time.

He set it to the side, next to the remains of her accelerator, and prepared to hold her fast.

_Please know I’m not trying to hurt you, Lena. Please know that._

Mercy nodded to him silently, and he held her down, Tracer letting out a squealing animal cry as Mercy, bless her, so deftly and quickly, slipped an IV into her arm.  She let the drip flow, Tracer quieting as the chemical cocktail slipped in and caressed her furious nerves, giving her just enough space to rest.

She relaxed, her tremble growing smaller but never quite dissipating completely, her whimper growing softer, her eyes growing heavy as Mercy’s work quietly dimmed the lights of her brain.

Winston gently picked her up, and she twitched in his arms, a grimace on her face.

“That is all I can give her. For safety.” Mercy reassuringly touched his arm.

Winston nodded to her, grateful for her help as he carried Tracer over to the back of the room. He had tried to improve in every way upon the original Bug Jar. To give her a place that would be quiet and calm and private and safe. It had become his obsession of the last few weeks, making sure her sheets were the softest he could find, that her oldest t-shirts were there to dress her, that everything would gently ease her back into the world, and that soon Lena would reappear, with her bright smile and her sparkling eyes and her playful laugh.

It was strange, to be holding her in his arms and missing her, all at the same time.

“We need to clean you up a little bit, Lena,” he whispered, “it’ll make you feel better.”

The sound of the running water made her cringe, too loud in her ears, and Mercy overturned a bowl under the faucet, quieting it as it flowed over the top.

“Smart.” Winston smiled appreciatively.

“Doctor.” She quietly teased.

Winston and Mercy had always liked each other, and always worked together, since they had brought Tracer back the first time. Mercy had never quite forgiven herself quitting when the higher-ups in Overwatch demanded she find a way to make Tracer talk, to tell them where the Slipstream was, and no amount of explanation that Tracer needed time to heal, if she ever did, would please them. This was her second chance to help Tracer. Overwatch was on the ropes, and could demand little.

It would be her chance to simply be kind, and Winston was happy to give it to her.

They worked in perfect silence, punctuated only by by Tracer’s occasional whimpers, no matter how gentle they tried to be. Winston wonder how he had done it, the first time, and the answer came to him in an embarrassing blush–he hadn’t taken care of her, the first time, the job had been outsourced to the wide array of people they had on the job. Nothing like the skeleton crew of today, which seemed small even for Overwatch’s reduced ranks.

“Angela,” he whispered softly, “there’s no one around today.”

She nodded as she gently toweled Tracer’s hair. “It’s Christmas Day.” she smiled at him. “

Winston looked down at Tracer, who was staring off into the distance, whimpering softly, as though Winston were not even there. It was one of the most painful presents Tracer had ever him, the terrible gift of herself.

Mercy slipped out of the room quickly and quietly as he carried Tracer gently over to the quiet dim of the soft bed, and she arched her back in pain as he pulled an old worn soccer shirt over her head. He laid her gently against the mound of fluffy pillows he had spent these last weeks assembling, and pulled the worn softness of a quilt over her.

It all just seemed like sandpaper, for all the comfort it brought her, and Winston felt the deep chasm of despair burn through his stomach.

“Christmas is your favorite, Lena,” he whispered, “so it’s good you’re home. I didn’t decorate, but–”

Mercy tapped his arm, standing with a medical kit and a young man Winston recognized from Mercy’s lab.. “ She will not be liking this, even with the medicine. Please get me a cocoa. I have help.”

It was a kindness, from Mercy, Winston knew, saw in his face the agony of being able to do nothing but harm her and taking the responsibility onto herself. Mercy was like that. There was a reason they called her Mercy.

He wandered away, far enough away to mute Tracer’s yelps, knowing in his heart, they were helping her. They had to hurt her to do that, but they were helping her. He held to that, as he mixed the chocolate into the hot milk. They were helping her. Soon he'd’ be bringing this for her, and not Mercy, and she would be quiet for a while, and sleep more, but she’d come back. She had to come back. He believed in her. He believed she could.

The kitchen was lonely, with only a few people streaming in and out, seemingly unaffected by Tracer’s return, and Winston wondered how they could be so lucky, to be untouched by her suffering, to not know what it was to care for someone so much and be able to bring them nothing but pain.

He took Mercy’s mug back into the room, the huff of the timelock closing behind him. Mercy sat at Tracer’s bedside, apologizing softly. Tracer was properly wired up now, though Mercy had tried to be kind, a tube down her nose and a lead at her chest, for all the things she forgot about doing, just now, and all the things she might forget to do.

Mercy took the mug gratefully from his hands, and nodded to him wordlessly as she left, though Winston saw her swallow hard, blinking back tears as she sipped her cocoa.

This would not go down as one of Winston’s favorite Christmases. They should be with the Oxtons, yelling around a huge table about nothing at all, laughing and carrying on, a bright tree glowing in the background piled with gifts around it, giant dishes of potatoes and a huge Christmas turkey in front of them. Tracer should be getting her hand slapped for trying too early to break into the puddings, and Winston should be sitting in the corner happily, part of a family, the warm buzz around him, in a new sweater from Tracer’s grandmother.

Not here. Not like this.

The Oxtons. He should call them. They’d want to know she’d been found. That she was alive. There were a lot of things he needed to do, but instead he sat quietly by her side, watching her chest rise and fall, hoping that she would stay asleep, the she was exhausted enough, that she would be safe if only for a few hours.

He looked at her naked wrist, so delicate looking against the bright blue of her comforter, and whispered to her. “I have your watch. I kept it safe. I even got the battery replaced, it’s probably been a long time since you remembered to do that.”

“Today was the hardest part, Lena. The worst is over.” He wasn’t sure which one of them he was talking to. He wasn’t sure it mattered.

He looked up at the picture by her bedside, the two of them in London, the grey of the day no match for Tracer’s sunshine of the spirit.

“Mer–Happy Christmas, Lena.”

In a tiny apartment above the medical lab, Mercy looked out the window in the dark of the night, boxed macaroni and cheese steaming in front of her as The Little Drummer Boy played on the TV behind her, and she wondered how three kings could consider it wise to follow one star when there were so many in the sky, each leading a different direction, all of them to a different king to serve.


	6. Schism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments! I stopped updating here for a while because I just didn't know if it was super enjoyable BUT I did keep writing it. And thanks to y'all I have this update, and another one later this week, and then another a few days after that.

_“Just ‘ave a bit of faith, Win!” She yelled as a bullet pinged over the top of the concrete barrier they were pinned behind, Winston slouched as low as he could go. She wasn’t afraid. She was never afraid._

_“Tracer. Winston. There are, oh, twenty-five, twenty-six omnics surrounding you.” The voice seemed mildly amused by the entire situation. “I suggest you stay put.”_

_“You’ve a real sense of timing, ‘aven’t you, Ana?” Tracer blew her bangs out of her face and smiled. “Don’t worry, love. Won’t let nothing ‘appen to you.”_

_Winston closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He’d known this might happen, when he decided to join Tracer in the field, but he did not have Tracer’s inborn comfort with the idea of dying in line of duty, and always felt awkward next to the rest of the soldiers. Awkward and scared._

_Tracer put her hand on his, her eyes glowing with confidence, her voice chipper.  “Bit of a pig’s ear, this, but we’ll nip off to the pub tonight, after Ana explains to us all ‘ow bloody stupid we are. There’s one what ‘as a beer that tastes of banana bread, least that’s what the menu claims, sounds–”_

_There was a roar and the sound of a hammer slamming into metal._

_“Rein!” Tracer giggling, her accelerator glowing brightly as she prepared to pounce. “See love? A little faith, is all.”_

If you had asked Winston, he would have said Tracer was doing wonderfully. That he had faith that she would be okay. Some of that was Winston’s natural desire to have it be true, and even he would have admitted as much. But still, he felt, over the course of three weeks, she had improved by leaps and bounds. 

Which put him in the mind that she would normally be leaping and bounding, which depressed him a bit, and so he let go to of the phrase, but kept the thought. 

He sat in the large tire near her bed, watching a television show that must be nearly 70 years old by now. He loved it in the way that a person loves the Saturday Morning cartoon they grew up with, laughing at it teasingly while the whole of his heart felt wrapped warm with the love of it. 

Dr. Harold had played it for him, at the station, his ideas of the qualities of mankind and what the future could be filling up the tiny screen and filling Winston’s mind. If it had been silly Winston did not care. It felt like he was holding Dr. Harold near, in those moments, the polyester uniforms a comfort few people could understand. 

“Make it so,” the comforting voice boomed onscreen. 

There were moments now, mercifully, where Tracer seemed to relax, just a little, where every tiny sound and touch did not seem to assail her, and now, as he listened to Captain Picard through the headphones he’d carefully rigged for himself, he thanked whatever goodness there was in the world that now seemed to be one of those moments. Her eyes lit on things now, sometimes, focusing for a moment before they flew away, and she would watch for a moment, and then close them, cushioned by the softness of the tiny nest Winston had created for her.

 

He’d been a little rough on her this morning, he thought, so early and so thorough, but she needed to be cleaned up, and dressed half-normally, and rested, and all of that necessitated so many things, and it was just like being in battle again, awkward and scared and unsure. 

But she;d slept, after it all, and it made him feel some peace, seeing her comfortable, if even for a moment. That everything might not be lost. 

If Tracer were herself, she would tell him not to worry so much, just give her a bit of time, is all, and he could practically hear her exasperated, comforting love, clipped and devoid of the letter h and perfect. She would tell him there were bigger problems in the world, such as the fact that there was no delivery to the outpost, not Chinese or Indian or even pizza. 

She’d complained about that vehemently, as they’d suited up for Numbani. Told Winston they had to stop somewhere on the way back, as it was Mercy’s turn to cook. 

That she might not come back had never occurred to her. She didn’t borrow trouble, she always said. 

It managed to find her anyways, she’d add, laughing. 

He leaned up gently against the edge of the bed, whispering in the way he had become used to these last weeks. “I don’t want to pressure you, but if you were going to start talking, today would be the day to do it.”

Tracer opened her eyes, and looked at him for a moment, and she might have been tired–she usually was–but to Winston it looked, just for a moment, as if she was annoyed. There was a spark there, and he clung to it like the last lantern in a storm.  _Please be annoyed with me, Lena._

He glanced up at the clock. “I have to tell you something. I just wanted you to rest first..”

__ __

 

_One week earlier_

.

“Winston’s care of her is exceptional.” Mercy sat up, trying to come across as authoritative. She did not know what Overwatch had in mind–things had been so strange, with the deaths of Gabriel and Jack, with the United Nations calling at their door. But she knew enough to know, that she could not give any critique to the way Winston had been caring for Tracer. There was no critique to give. 

“That was not a question I had asked, Dr. Ziegler.” Zuiliani looked at her, his glasses down on his nose as he pored over Tracer’s file. “You are the global expert on Tracer’s condition.” 

Mercy gave a weak laugh. “I am nothing but the global expert on Tracer.” She shook her head. “She is entirely unique, are you not understanding that?”

“I asked,” he removed his glasses, “when you thought she might get better. If.” 

“Tomorrow. Never. I will not be giving a prediction on a study of one.” She took a deep breath. He wasn’t meaning to be offensive. He was a military man, and a man of science, and it was sometimes difficult for an engineering type to understand that humans were not always a thing you could plug into a formula. “She is the only person on earth like her, Commander. We are not even understanding why her body acts in that way, or the physical cause. Her treatment is symptomatic. I would have been calling it Tracer Syndrome in my papers, but Lena did not want to be known like that, for that.”

He nodded. “Based on your knowledge of Tracer, is all I am asking. If you expect her to get well, reasonably soon.”

Mercy sat with her thoughts for a moment. She loathed these moments, where she did not know the way to answer, where honesty felt like cruelty. She had no expectation of Tracer in any direction, on a scientific level. She was not lying when she said there was no one like Tracer in this world. What she had been through was akin to torture, in her mind, a torture method that had yet been unstudied.

Zuliani continued. “What needs to be done with her–” 

“I am believing Tracer was wounded in action. Both times.” She looked at him severely. “I am forgetting? Or is it not true that being in service when you are wounded gives you certain rights?” 

“Dr. Ziegler, we are not enemies, you and I.” 

“That is true,” she nodded, “I am only wanting to be certain we have the same understanding,” She stood quietly, “I will not be signing a document to place a burden on her expectations. She is getting good care, and she is stable, and I will not help you ask anything of her but to live.”

She moved to the door, still shaking. 

“Dr. Ziegler. You know I will have someone evaluate her.” 

“Yes,” She gripped the doorknob. “But it will not be me.”

 

___

 

Winston put up his hands toward the doctor as they walked toward his lab. “She’s most sensitive to noise and to touch, so, I try to keep my voice low.” he looked nervously over at the man who walked next to him, holding his notebook calmly, as if he didn’t realize he held the fate of Winston’s dearest person in his hands.

The commander has not said as much when he told Winston Tracer would need to be evaluated by a physician, but Mercy’s refusal to be that physician told him all he needed to know. That they weren’t so much wondering how she was doing as what to do with her.

The first time she had come back, they had let Winston keep her in the lab. They hadn’t bothered Winston much, in those days. Overwatch was mostly thriving. What Winston did, so long as he also worked on developing technologies, was up to him. But now, with Overwatch against the ropes, he wasn’t sure. 

They had loved Tracer when she was the brave mouthpiece for Overwatch, the girl who had come back and was even better. They loved for her to show off her blinking, as if Overwatch had given her a gift, editing out carefully the annoyances of wearing her accelerator every day, of charges and batteries and not feeling as if she could go to the movies without a coat on. The dreams that gripped her occasionally. 

But now she was hurt (not broken. Winston would never say that, never let anyone else say that in his presence) and she was a liability, and Winston was awkward and scared. Like always. 

He reconsidered talking about Tracer’s limitations. Better to bring forward her successes. 

“You know, she’s eating now. Mostly protien shakes, of course, but it’s remarkable progress, I think, don’t you?” He looked at the doctor expectantly. 

The doctor said nothing, simply flipped through her file and gave a weak smile. 

“Angela’s been reducing her medication too, she’s a bit more clear-minded.” 

“Yes,” The doctor looked up, “Dr. Ziegler had firm opinions on the nature of Agent Oxton’s case and progress, which she was only too happy to share with me.” 

Agent Oxton. Winston didn’t think there was anything that could sound more disconnected than simply referring to her by her callsign, but there it was, out in front of him. Tracer, at least, felt like it belonged to her, it had been her callsign all through the RAF, a tribute to her mother, she happily wore it inscribed on her jacket. This felt so…disconnected. Even Ana called her Tracer, and Ana had been mostly annoyed by her in the best of times. 

Winston paused at the door of the lab and looked over at the doctor. “She’s trying so hard.” 

“I’m not here to punish her, Winston.” 

_Dr. Winston. I’m a doctor, too. I have multiple Ph.Ds. And you aren’t here to help her, either._

But Winston simply nodded, took a deep breath, and opened the first part of the timelock. He’d been working on a less bulky way to do this, a way to install it in a room in a home. He was fairly certain he’d lit upon it. He had been planning on giving it to her for Christmas. At least her bedroom could be more comfortable. He’d make it stronger, expand it to a floor, he would tell her, he just needed more time to work.

He’d tell her he bought an old warehouse in London. It was being turned into a home for him. He’d live in London, like she always wanted. She was the only family he had anyhow. The Oxtons could use it for Christmas, if they wanted. It’d be more than big enough to fit all of them.

 

He had been so excited, just 6 weeks ago. 

Tracer sat against the headboard of her bed, dressed in the bright blue toucan print shirt she loved so much, one of her joyfully tacky acquisitions from the boys’ department. She blinked a few times and shook her head at the sound of Winston coming in the door.

“Lena…” He spoke softly. 

“Dr. Perreault,” He stepped forward, not speaking as quietly as Winston would have appreciated, “I’m here to perform your medical examination.” 

Tracer swallowed, and her eyes lit on him, trying to focus, trying to say something, the effort of it marked upon her face. Winston wanted to tell him to go away, to leave her alone, that she was doing all she could, that she just needed time. 

_The trouble’s mostly I’ve too much time, love_ , Tracer would have joked, if she could. 

But she couldn’t. All she could do is recoil and howl as he pressed the too-cold stethoscope to her wrist, a tear of frustration and pain trailing down her cheek.

Winston felt his stomach turn, and as Dr. Perreault’s pencil scratched on the paper, he finally understood how a noise could be so large as to crush you. 

___

 

“It isn’t as if we feel you’re doing a poor job with her,” He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers, “But you know, the United Nations is keeping a close eye, and with our ranks smaller, the mess with Reyes and Morrison, we need you on the field. And,” He angled his eyebrow to Winston, “If the UN decides to inspect the facility, you know we can’t have someone who makes this organization look…uncivilized here. Dangerous.” 

“Doomfist is the one who hurt her.” His voice was wary. “We brought her back.” 

Zuliani looked carefully, choosing his words. “Tracer’s initial…disability was the beginning of the inquiries years ago, and you know that.” 

_Because you sent her in a plane that was poorly tested, into something that the technology for shouldn’t even be possible, that still isn’t possible on that scale, and because you tried to cover it up, and you would have left her for dead if you hadn’t thought she could get back the plane…_

“And?” he dreaded the asking, but the not knowing was worse.

“She may never recover. My specialist–” 

Winston nearly jumped on top of the desk. “Your specialist doesn’t know her. He saw her for twenty minutes and he left.  It’s been three weeks, she hasn’t had time to heal at all, she came back from this once, she can do it again. Even in those three weeks, she’s–”

He raised his palm to Winston and smiled reassuringly. “We won’t abandon her, of course. Disabled in the line of duty. That doesn’t mean nothing to the organization.” He pulled a brochure out of his desk. “I’ve made arrangements with a very well regarded care facility. They’re prepared for her, and she’ll be transferred at the end of the w—"

“No, you can’t.” He wished for courage behind his voice, but there was only hurt, only sadness. “She’ll hate a place like that. It won’t–she won’t–they don’t know her at all, Commander, she’ll never get better. She’ll die.” 

He sighed heavily. “I know you’re very close. But she won’t die, I assure you.”

“She will in the way it matters.”

Zuiliani set the brochure in his hand. “This is the official decision of the organization. You of course can visit her anytime, and we’ll make a allowances for you–”

“I officially tender my resignation. I officially tender  _our_  resignation.” Winston stood up from the desk, staring intently at Zuliani. He hated Doomfist, and would the rest of his life, but in the darkest, quietest, guiltiest part of his heart, he knew that what Doomfist had done had strengthened him as few things could. It had made him discover he had a line. Where he was no longer awkward and scared. A place where he would break in a way that made others afraid. 

She was never afraid, but she’d been afraid that day, clutching what was left of her accelerator to her chest. He’d never forget the look on her face, the way she reached out to him, the sheer, shaking fear in her eyes…

“Winston–”

His eyes sparked with anger. “Dr. Winston! And my papers are on file. I am certain even your  _specialist_  will sign off that she in not in the right stage of mind to decide for herself.”

Zuliani stood up from his desk, even as he could not hope to match Winston in size. “If you care about Overwatch’s–”

“YOU ARE NOT OVERWATCH ANYMORE!” He slammed his fist down on the desk, neatly cracking the solid walnut, and immediately drew his hand to his chest. “I believed in the mission. This isn’t that anymore.” He set his badge on the table. “We’ll be gone by the end of the week.” 

“Wi–Dr. Winston, you have a duty to–” 

“Yes,” Winston said quietly, “I have a duty to do the right thing.” 

He stormed out of the office, his mind whirling with thoughts. He had to call Lily, or Mark. They’d know how to arrange transportation. He had to do it quickly, what if they decided to take matters into their own hands, what if he woke up one morning and found her sent away? Or worse. No, not worse, they’d never do that…would they?

There was the quick step of someone running up to meet him, and he turned.

“Winston!” Mercy cried out, a slight smile on her face as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She eyes searched his face, and a soft sadness filled them. “Oh,” she touched his elbow gently, “Is something wrong? Is Lena not doing so well, I thought–” 

“I handed in my resignation. I’m taking Lena home.” He looked at her, apologetic, and then looked at the ground, unable to meet her gaze.

“Home?”

“I bought an old warehouse in London, to have it made for me, and–I was going to surprise Lena, she’s always wanted me to have a place there, but now–now we’re just going to go. It’s not finished, but it’s enough.”

Mercy shook her head. “I–”

“Angela, they were going to send her away,” He could not look at her, still, and his voice dripped with pain. “To some facility. They don’t think she’ll get better. They won’t give her time.”

Mercy looked off into the distance for a moment, her voice quiet. “I should have lied. I am sorry.”

“They asked you?” He looked back at her, incredulous.

She nodded silently. “I was trying–I did not want to bind her. I did not mean for this. I TOLD Perreault…” She was shaking now, though with frustration or anger or sadness, Winston did not know.  

There was a part of Winston that wanted to be angry, that wanted to ask Mercy why she had ever thought Overwatch would act in Tracer’s best interests, how she could be so stupidly hopeful. But he looked at the broken disappointment on her face, and realized it mirrored his own. They had both had some vain, foolish hope. Some belief in the goodness Overwatch stood for. Had stood for.

He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “It isn’t your fault, Angela. They would have done it anyway.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps that hurts the most.”

____

Sitting in Tracer’s little bug jar with her, afraid now to leave her alone, Winston recounted the things he did not have. He did not have a job with which to support he and Tracer. He did not have any idea whether Tracer would hate him for having destroyed both of their careers. He did not know when Mark Oxton was going to return his phone call. He did not have the moving boxes necessary for even their meager belongings. He did not have a home that wasn’t in the middle of construction.

He did not have the slightest idea how much money was in his bank account. Or hers.

He sighed heavily and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling for a moment. There was no taking this back. If he tried, they’d make him sign her away to that…place. Who did he know with money? Maybe Oxford would give him a teaching position? He certainly had the paperwork to back up such a position, even if Overwatch wasn’t exactly free of controversy at the moment.

He’d take a job repairing cell phones, if that’s what it took.

He felt a small touch on his arm, and turned to see Tracer looking at him. 

It was just one small, quiet word. 

“Win.” 

He smiled. 

He had no protection, no long-term plan, and no foreseeable future. 

But he had faith. 


	7. Fly Away Home

Winston looked at the small bags he had packed, the things they would take as they left the only life they’d known for the last few years behind, off onto something unknown, a new life that lay amorphous in his brain.

They’d had only two weeks to get everything together, blue uniforms trying to convince Winston all the while that Overwatch really did have the best idea, there was so much risk to the organization, and you know Talon is out there, and Dr. O’Deorain has always wanted to experiment with her. This moved hinting that maybe they were moveable on the issue, maybe WInston could go with her, maybe, maybe, maybe, but Winston would hear none of it, the anger in him still fresh, knowing that even if they let Tracer off this time, the next time she, or he, or anyone was hurt, they’d be written off as soon as they became inconvenient.

“Be nice to see ‘ome again.” Tracer’s voice was quiet, but she spoke now and again, and every time she did it it filled Winston with hope.

He grinned and nodded at her. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

WInston had tried to keep his shiny veneer while Tracer recovered, but he felt it flake in places–he would not say he was a negative person, but he lacked Tracer’s ability to turn any situation into something to smile or laugh about, her quick way of turning on the light in the darkness, even if only a candle.

It frustrated him a bit, that she was so clear-headed today. The patchwork of good days and bad days was stressful enough on its own, and to have to sedate her on a day when she was doing so well, on a day when Winston could have had the time with her that had been lacking, that he was missing so much, seemed particularly cruel.

But things often were, whatever he felt about it, what they were going to be. He had learned that, over enough years in Overwatch, that sometimes you could not control what would be. Science didn’t have the answer for fate.

“You should take this, Lena.”

She looked down at it, and rolled her eyes, annoyed. “Not much point in my being alive if all I do is sleep through it, is there?”

“Lena.” He sat next to her, “It’s just–”

She sighed and drew the top of her flannel pajamas closer in to her. “I know, Win.” She slowly hand a hand through her hair. “S’just a question of what I can bear.  Tired of it.”

“You’ll get better.”

“I bloody well ‘ope–” She shook her head as she took the pills from Winston’s hand, “right. I will. Takes time, is all.” She nodded. “Time and work.”

She swallowed, and Winston helped her put on her chronal accelerator, trying to keep it loose on her body, afraid it might irritate her. She picked up the grey cardigan she loved, worn and soft and smelling of home, and gave a weak smile.

“It’ll be easier in London.” She nodded again. “I’ll be better.”

He had learned that sometimes you could not control what the world did to you, but he was always astounded at how Tracer, in her weakest moments, never let it conquer her. Her moments of doubt, and of despair, were only ever that. The world had taken her worst nightmare, and thrown her back into it, and she dug in her heels and refused to break. She was still quiet and shaky and sensitive, but there was something invincible in her, something powerful he could not name.

She slipped on her cardigan, and nodded, as the wooziness began to overtake her. “Let’s get to it already.”

__

If an airport could be said to have a back alley, that was where Tracer’s aunt and uncle were coming for them. Numbani was a fully modern, beautiful, and generally peaceful city, but you’d be forgiven for not knowing that as the weeds grew up through the asphalt, cracking and splitting it. Mark said he could set it down there, in the casual Oxton way with flying, as if it were heading to the market, and WInston had no reason to disagree.

Mark and Lily stood apart at the edge of the plane, two bookends of a family with the middle cut out. Winston had seen a picture of the four of them, from during the Omnic Crisis,smiling together in RAF uniforms, and today they stood that way, as if any moment, Bert and Annie might slip right back into the picture.

But all that emerged from the small cargo plane was Tracer’s grandmother Beatrix, a tiny but nonetheless imposing woman who had seen enough of Overwatch to last her entire life, and who was not afraid to make her loathing of the organization known. Last Christmas, she and Tracer had gotten into it over too many cups of wassail.

Mostly Winston assumed Tracer would be disappointed Beatrix been proven right, in way.

As if sensing the momentary tension, Mark grinned and waved at Winston. Mark Oxton was an easygoing man, immediately identifiable as an Oxton from his wide smile and small build, and Winston liked him immensely.

He skipped over to their side, and clapped Winston on the shoulder as he looked over at Tracer in his arms, mostly asleep. “You’ve looked better, Lena my girl,” but his smile did not fade as he looked up at Winston, “doing the right thing, bringing ‘er ‘ome.”

_I don’t have any other choice,_  Winston did not say. Mark wasn’t wrong–Tracer loved London with everything in her, it was a part of her core, her home in a way Winston could not identify with but cherished about her, knowing where she came from and where she belonged, the way she looked whenever she returned, unable to hide her glee at being in a place that was truly  _her._

If he hadn’t been so desperately afraid that he wouldn’t have the money to care for her, he would have brought her back to London a long time ago. It was the first thing he’d said that had made her smile, even if it was a bit weak for her, since she returned.

But he was desperately afraid. Out of work and afraid.

Mark seemed to read his mind, in that loving and irritating Oxton way. “We’ll ‘elp you, Win. Nothing to worry about.”

Whether he was talking about the travel or Tracer’s health or the money or finishing his house, Winston was not sure, but, knowing the Oxton clan as he did, it likely meant all of that, and then some, and he was grateful.

“Thank you for coming to get us.” Winston knew that it could not have been easy, finding some way that the RAF cargo plane needed to fly to Numbani. Lily was high up in the maintenance department, so that must have afforded them some freedom, but still, Winston was fairly sure they could both lose their jobs over this.

And even more certain they didn’t care. Right was often just right, to an Oxton, whatever you paid for it.

“We take care of our own,” Lily said, in that no-nonsense way of hers. Winston often wondered if she had always been the most serious of the four, or if the Omnic Crisis had made her into what she needed to be. But then, she cracked a smile, reminding him that she was only serious for an Oxton, “Royal Air Force owes me a flight or two, I think they’d agree, though I won’t be asking, mind.”

Mark burst out a loud laugh. “Easier to ask forgiveness than permission, innit? Always tell that to Teddy, but ‘e’s a bit less impressed with it, even after all these years with me.”

Their chatter reminded him of just how much he had missed Tracer’s.

A few months ago, he thought he would be spending Christmas with them, barely able to move in her grandmother’s house but always welcomed, the scents of food and cheerful banter surrounding him in their warmth. He thought he would be telling them he was moving to London officially, and that his new place would be big enough to hold all of them, for any party they wanted to have. It should have been exciting, it should have been wonderful, it should have been a wonderful reunion instead of a worried carriage home.

Every time Winston was near to peace, he thought, something happened.

“‘’Eard about what you did to Doomfist, though,” Mark continued his chatter, “bit of revenge makes it a bit easier to swallow, I think.”

“Mark,” Lily looked over at him, “You going to help, or do I ‘ave to do the whole bloody thing by meself while you tell Winston the story of ‘is life over again?”

Mark skipped off as Tracer’s grandmother Beatrix approached him. She was small, even by Oxton standards, but Winston always found himself taking a step back when she was in the room.

“Overwatch never changes,” she said with the edge in her voice of a woman who never quite forgave a sin, “seems. ‘Ow polite of them not cut ‘er open. Might not ‘ave ‘appened that way if you weren’t about I expect, love.”

“Hi, Bea.”

He gave a sheepish smile, and her face softened, touching him on the arm. “Welcome back, Winston.”

It was welcome back to the family, not to London, and Winston felt the warmth of it, regretting that he hadn’t returned sooner.

Mark called over to them. “You three going to faff about all day, or you going to let me get back to London? Teddy’s making a roast, ‘e is, and I’d rather ‘ave that than me bag of crisps in the cockpit.”

“You ‘old your tongue, Mark.” Beatrix scowled playfully at him ****, but nodded at Winston. “Let’s get to it.”

“Already.” He said to himself, wishing Tracer could have supplied it. 

But sometimes you just have to hold a space, and wait for the real thing. 

___

He must have fallen asleep. The sky looked different.

The plane soared above the land, turning it into a grey and green and brown blur as they drifted into the clouds. Beatrix came to sit beside Winston, looking over at Tracer, who lay sleeping on the small cot affixed to the cargo plane wall.

How they had managed anything they did with an airplane was a question that rarely crossed Winston’s mind anymore. The Oxtons were airplanes, as far as he was concerned. Tracer had talked about being a trick flyer, if Overwatch folded, though she’d rather it didn’t. But the sky was a place she’d always belong, she’d said happily.

As he considered these things, Beatrix sat across from him the plane buzzing in its dull hum, Mark chatting with Lily about something up front in the standard Oxton patter, full of excited jumps in pitch and volume, followed by wide cascades of laughter.

It felt like coming home, in a way that the direction on the map never felt.

Beatrix sat across the plane from Winston and Tracer, tugging on a thread as she tightened the patches on Tracer’s worn, loved jacket. Beatrix loved him, Winston knew, but he also knew she had little patience for his (and Lena’s, for that matter) devotion to the organization.

And now that organization had betrayed Tracer in a way that Winston felt into his bones, poisonous and seeping, how he’d let her be betrayed. It was his fault, too, and he wanted to tell Beatrix that, wanted to let her know he was sorry for what he’d done to her granddaughter.

He looked over at her for a moment, until she turned her face up to meet his.

“You were right.” Winston shrugged and gave a weak smile.

“Not ‘appy at that, you know.” She looked at him with a keen edge of judgment. “Would like to ‘ave been wrong. But after what they did to Bert…”

She was a woman familiar with loss, and not averse to it, accepting it as a part of life, and more particularly, a part of having 75% of her family in the RAF. No, that had never been the problem, that she had lost a second child, it had always been that she never felt it quite fair, what they had done to Bert, and she blamed them for his death, and Winston was the kind of coward that could never tell her, in his darkest moments, that he was grateful for everything that had happened to Tracer, back then.

If it hadn’t, Winston wouldn’t have her, and he couldn’t give that up, no matter how he hated that part of himself that whispered that.

“I know–”

“It’s more than the ‘appening itself, Win.” The nickname hurt, a little, as Tracer slept quietly and wordlessly. The one syllable was love and affection, but even if her whole family did it, to him it would always be Lena.

Beatrix sighed and shook her head.

“Me Gran ‘ad an uncle,” she looked down at Tracer,” Like Lena, ‘e was, there’s one or two, every generation, what runs a bit faster than most in the ‘ead. Me Annie was like that, you know, fast.  Gran’s mum said ‘e was funny, and sharp, brilliant pilot. Went down in the war, captured. ‘E didn’t tell them anything, three years,” she inclined her head to Winston, “‘e was an Oxton, through and through, right? Came back at the end of the war.”

“That’s good.’ Winston wasn’t sure where this conversation was meandering to, not sure he wanted the answer.

“Me great uncle was a quiet and nervous man. Barely slept. Never ‘eld a job.” She looked up at Winston. “Broke ‘im, they did. Totally. I never knew the man ‘e was, that me gran did.” She paused. “Quicker plane ‘as less armor, right?” She looked back at Tracer. “I–”

“No, c’mon,” he shook his head, interrupting her, not willing to follow, “where’s that Oxton optimism? She’ll be fine.”

She laughed. “Optimism isn’t saying everything will go your way, Win. It’s saying you’ll figure it out, whatever comes. Me great uncle was cared for, by us, for ‘is entire life. ‘E never found ‘is way to the gutter, never went it alone, and neither will Lena, whatever ‘appens. That’s Oxton optimism, that we can ‘elp, whatever it is.” She went back to the jacket. “What it isn’t, is thinking Lena’ll come right because we want ‘er to.”

Winston did not respond, but simply looked down at Tracer, his mind whirring with a dozen possibilities and excuses.

“But she’ll be ‘ome, at the least.” Beatrix smiled, seeming to regret having brought a bit too much reality to WInston’s door, “You ‘ave an idea where you’ll go? Plan for what you’ll do?”

WInston gave an inarticulate gesture. “I–I have a lot of experience with technology, and I could teach, or do research, uh, if–”

Beatrix laughed. “That’s a no if I ever ‘eard one.” Winston’s face fell, and she shook her head kindly. “We’ve a bit of money laid aside, if you should need it.”

“Thank you, Bea.” He said quietly.

“Thank you for bringing ‘er back to us.” She raised her eyebrows, “Again.”

Winston gave a low chuckle of concession, and felt his ears pop.

Tracer shook her head a moment, trying to shake off the sleepiness, and Winston wasn’t sure whether he wanted her to succeed or not. She put her hand on the side of the plane and closed her eyes.

“Feels good.”

_Well, the day isn’t a total loss._

He barely felt when the plane landed. Mark was a good pilot, though he imagined that shouldn’t have surprised him.

Tracer finally shook off the haze that had consumed her, the drugs wearing off  after the 6 hours that seemed 20 seconds to Winston. No. Not 20 seconds. 20 seconds were cold and unkind, and the flight had been warm and loving even in its hardest moments. 21 seconds, maybe.

Tracer stumbled to her feet, blinking a few times, as the door dropped from the side. She pulled the chunky worn grey cardigan onto her shoulder, her hair stuck up at each angle, fluffy in the deep humidity wafting through the door already.

She took a step toward the light, a shudder running through her as the forgotten familiar cold of London crept into the plane. Winston put a hand on her shoulder, trying to hold her back, to let him go first, to let him carry her.

She waved him off, and Beatrix took his arm.

“Let ‘er be, Win.” Beatrix rose to her feet, following behind Tracer.

She staggered toward the door as it opened, and sat on the top step of the simple dropped stair woozily. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, the gentle grey of the sky easy on her eyes, the smell of it soft and familiar and wet and home in her nose, and she sighed, drawing the thick cardigan closer around her, trying to stave off the chill that reminded her of things she needed to forget, if only for now.

She looked out into the low London haze, and nodded.

“Made it.”


	8. Here and Now and There and Then

_ The sidewalk came up hard and fast as the toe of her tennis shoe caught her heel, sending her soaring to the ground, elbows digging against her sweater and the corduroy of her pants failing to cushion her tiny knees.  _

_ She stared at the dark grey of the damp walkway for a moment.  _

_ “Brush yourself off, Lena,” She looked up to see her father smiling at her kindly, offering her his hand, “Come on then.”  _

_ Lena Oxton, three years old and not yet Tracer, pushed her hands to the cement and got to her feet. She nodded at her dad, brushing away his hand with great confidence, and made a great show of brushing off the front of her pants and the front of her shirt.  _

_ She grinned at her father. “All better!”  _

_ Her mother wrapped an arm around her father, smiling at Lena. “What about Biscuit?”  _

_ Lena nodded quickly, eyes wide in the disbelief that she had forgotten his needs, and brushed off the stuffed sloth in her hand, kissing his elbows, just in case he had a booboo.  _

_ “That’s a girl.” Her mother reached out her hand, and Lena took it.  _

_ “All better now, innit?” Her father took her other hand.  _

_ They walked down the street, the cool grey fog of London surrounding them, towards home.  _

Tracer sat in the small bed of what was now her bedroom, in an old warehouse in London, watching the rain drizzle down the glass, wrapped warm in her sweater and a pair of fluffy socks, Biscuit still resting, after all these years, up under her arm. 

She was better. This was impossible to deny, and she was grateful and happy. She had a wonderful friend who’d uprooted his life for her, and a fantastic family that did and gave everything they could, and her life and her care was assured in a way that few people’s ever were. This was also impossible to deny, and she was doubly thankful for all of it. 

But better was not fully well, and this was where she struggled. 

Her pen was a brightly colored metallic ink, the sparkles inside the barrel moving with each stroke as she doodled and wrote in her small journal with the stickers on the cover. She wanted to feel like this pen again, the pen Mercy had given her because she’d seen it in a store in Zurich and had immediately thought of Tracer. She wanted to sparkle and shine again. 

_ When you’re hurt really badly, you don’t have time to to think about it long-term. _

She looked at the sentence she’d written. That was the whole frustration of it, wasn’t it? When she’d first come back, everything hurt. Every gentle touch, every kind word, it was all agony. It was suffering or sleeping. 

Which didn’t leave her much time to worry that she’d never be well. 

But now home, in London, cared for and relatively comfortable, she worried. 

She would go along, doing the dishes or making dinner, walking down to the river or doing some shopping, trying to get a beer down at the pub like a normal person. A siren would be too loud as it went by, and her nerves would fray away all over again. Her brain was too fast. It was like a TV that kept flipping channels, and everything was so loud, why was the music in the pub so loud, why was everyone talking so much, their voices overlapping each other? Didn’t they know Tracer heard them all? That every word entered her ears, her brain struggling to follow all of it at once? 

She’d throw her pounds down on the bar and leave, trying to find someplace quiet, someplace still where she could let herself reset, and yet another sensation she didn’t need, the hot tears of her own embarrassment, would join the chorus of ‘this is your life now. This is as good as you’ll get.’ 

_ Lena burst into tears, wriggling away frantically from the crowd, the noise echoing in her ears from everyone’s conversations, a dozen concerned people touching her too softly, in that way that was meant to be comforting but only made every nerve more sensitive.  _

_ From behind, her father picked her up in a quick scoop, holding her tight against him as he leaned across the bar and gave a quick remark to Mickey, the man who had tended bar there for most of Lena’s life.  _

_ He opened the door to a tiny room behind the main pub, and set her down on top of a keg, and sat on a box next to her, his face carrying all the exhaustion of a man trying to figure out his life as a single parent over the last year.  _

_ “‘S all right, love.” He squeezed her shoulder tight. “We’ll just take a minute or two to ourselves.”  _

_ She was seven, then, old enough to be embarrassed that it was all too much, and too young to hide it well.  _

_ “Sorry.” She sniffled, the quiet and dark of the room already soothing.  _

_ He shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry over, Lena.” He thought for a moment. “My sister, your aunt, Annie. When we was little, she ‘ad this ‘appen too. Used to sit with her in the quiet.” He smiled at her. “Gets easier as you get older, or so she said.”  _

_ She brushed away her tears. “Really?” _

_ “Really really. You ever know me to lie, Lena Bean?”  _

_ She shook her head and climbed into his lap, hugging him close. “I miss Mummy.”  _

_ He held her tight against him, and she relaxed against her shoulder. “We’ll be alright, me girl. It’s you and me. Just takes time. Everything takes time.”  _

_ Everything takes time _ , she wrote in her notebook. 

Her father had been right, hadn’t he? Everything had gotten easier as Tracer had gotten older, as she’d learned how her mind worked and how to enter into a truce with it, how to play with it, how to enjoy it, how to love the way she was as her family did. Life had been easy, before the Slipstream. 

Coming back had been a fight then. And here she was again. 

The worst was when the chill damp of her beloved London slipped under her warm sweaters and touched her, and there it was,London becoming the void, that sharp cold that was the only feeling in the void of timelessness, the one that cut through her and ate her. She’d gasp, her body tight, her mind screaming PLEASE NO NOT AGAIN I WON’T MAKE IT I’LL DIE I’LL DIE PLEASE. 

Tracer set down her journal and looked out the window again, hugging her sloth close to her. 

“Today’s better than yesterday, Biscuit. Tomorrow’ll be better than today.” She nodded as she said it, her brow furrowed in determination. 

There was a knock at her door, as Winston gently stepped through the timelock, two mugs in hand. 

“Someday,” he said, letting the door shut behind him, “I am going to invent a network that covers the whole house. You can take your accelerator off anywhere in it.” He extended one of the mugs to her. “Cocoa?”

She took a deep breath, shedding the melancholy that was, she reminded herself, not really helping her anyhow, and smiled at him. “Love some!” She took the mug from his hand, a large swirl of whipped cream and sprinkles on top. 

He sat on the large beanbag chair across from her bed, where he stayed sometimes when the nightmares got bad. 

“I’m serious,” He took a drink of his cocoa, “”I’m already working on the technology, but it--”

“Winston,” she laughed, “I believe you. Can’t be easy.” She patted his hand. “Particularly not with you working so much.” 

Her voice was a little sad and guilty, and Winston rushed to comfort her, shaking his head. 

“Oh, no, my job is wonderful--” 

“You repair mobiles.” She looked at him skeptically. “You don’t ‘ave to lie to me, Win, I’m not a child.” She gave a weak laugh. “Suppose I should be grateful, I sit ‘ere and nip down to the pub, wash a dish, meanwhile, you work all day, Ang’s testifying before the bloody UN--”

“I--I don’t mind,” He looked at her kindly, “I don’t mind doing it for you.” 

And there was the truth of it, which was even more painful to Tracer. Winston didn’t love what he was doing, but he did love her. 

“What if,” She tried to bite back the fear, to bite back her embarrassment and shame, and choked back her tears. “What if I never get any better than I am right now?” 

“Then I’ll take care of you.” Winston said, in his is kind and loving and all wrong way. 

“I don’t want that!” Tracer gave in to the tears, gave in to the sliver of shadow that had been following her. 

He reached out to her. “Lena, you’re doing so well. It’s only been a few months, and you’ve come so far, it’s, I mean come on, this isn’t like you at a--” 

“Oh Winston, what if it ‘appens again?!” She sobbed into his shoulder, the strong wave of emotion that was so very her, whatever Winston hoped, “I’m so scared, all the bloody time, I-- I can’t do it Win, not again. I’ll die! I can’t--I’m not--” The sob broke form her, taking over her speech and flooding the room with the overwhelming sense of her sorrow.

Winston was possessed of a soft soul, and to see anyone upset touched his heart, whether he cared for them particularly or not. And so, to see Tracer: bright, sunny, unbreakable Tracer, his friend, his person, lost in her own moment of sorrow and despair and fear, that was the most painful thing of all. 

Worse was the he could not reassure her. That she might be right, that it could happen again. That it would only take the accident of a moment. 

All he could do was draw his arms tighter around her, as if the will of his own love could hold her in time. 

_ “Oh Lena,” Her father held her tightly on the couch, her tears pouring into her father’s blue shirt, “I know it ‘urts, love. I know.”  _

_ “Never asking out another girl ever again!” Her voice was muffled.  _

_ “Tell meself that plenty of times,” he laughed, “always a lie. We’re suckers for the ladies, love.”  _

_ She pulled away from him and flopped back on the couch, wiping her nose. “It’s too much. I ‘ate it.”  _

_ “You remember what I told you, when you was a girl?” He leaned back next to her on the couch and tapped her knee, the girl who was Lena, who would be Tracer, who would be lost and would be found. “You remember?”  _

She took a deep breath, pushed herself off of Winston’s shoulder, over to the window,  and looked up at the sun peeking out of the clouds . There shouldn’t be sun in London. It shouldn’t be able to make it through the clouds. 

But it did, didn’t it? No matter how many clouds there were, the sun always came through, eventually. 

“Brush yourself off, Lena.” She nodded. “Brush yourself off.” She gave Biscuit a hug. “We’re all right.” 

She looked over at Winston, who watched her carefully, wiped her eyes, and smiled. 

“What you say we go out for a bite, you and me?” She stood up out of the bed and stretched. 

It was her body, and she was in it. She was here, and even on the days it felt too much, she was feeling, wasn’t she? It felt good to stretch. It felt good to lay under her weighted blanket. 

Every day, new things felt good. It was getting better. Better every day. She just had brush herself off, Just had to keep trying. 

She walked over to her closet, taking out a pair of corduroy pants. 

“Could use a pie, to tell the truth,” she smiled over at Winston, “Let it be me treat, yeah? ‘Ave a bit of bread and ‘oney from me aunt Lil,” she laughed, the clouds moving from her mind, “well then on ‘er, I guess.” 

Winston adjusted his glasses nervously. “Are you feeling--” 

She took a clean purple sweater out of the dresser and beamed at Winston. 

“I am, now as you mention it.” She brushed off her pants. “Feel great.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This month, I'll wrap up this story--thank you so much to those of you who commented and supported me through it!


	9. Tick

A pause, like a breath, and the sound of breaking laughter, and then, Tracer’s cry. 

“Bloody ‘omophobia, this is!” Tracer leaned across the table, eyes sparkling, “‘ere among me own family!”

There was a certain amount of general din that followed any occasion where the Oxton clan got together, and the June occasion of a wedding was more excuse than they had ever needed to drink and dance and carry on. Six months ago, Winston had been sitting alone in a laboratory, sending a pulse out into time and hoping it could be heard, lonelier than he had ever been in his life. 

“‘Ow do you figure, Lena?” Her aunt Lily sat across from her, laughing into a cocktail shrimp. 

Then, he’d looked sadly into the little bug jar room he’d filled with her belongings--Biscuit, her blanket, a worn and loved Hammers shirt, a few RC planes, a picture of the two of them in London, as if he could coax her home like a cat that’s gone out, tucking a familiar towel into a box--and hoped he could find her again, knowing the odds were against him. Knowing no one believed, not even gentle, kind Mercy, who had brought him coffee every morning. 

But no one knew Tracer like Winston did. 

“I don’t like it, and it ‘urts me personally!” Tracer exploded in a bright laugh, rocking back into the chair and taking a drink of her beer and tapped Winston on the leg. “Win, defend me ‘ere!” 

When she had returned, it had been Winston again, in the little bug jar with her, coaxing her to try to eat, to try to talk, to try to live, while others looked on sympathetically or pityingly or resentfully or those that didn’t look at all, just wrote cold words on forms that sealed her fate. But he sat with her, knowing no one believed, not even generous, soft Mercy, who brought a little basket of Tracer’s favorite foods and smiled sadly. 

But no one saw Tracer like Winston did. 

“As a fellow ‘omosexual, I ‘ave to tell you--” Her Uncle Mark leaned toward her, shaking his head, taking his arm from around his husband’s shoulder. 

“Misogyny!” Tracer laughed again. “Assailed from all sides, I am!” 

And now, Winston was in a simple hall on the outskirts of London, glass of wine in his hand, surrounded by the warmth and chatter of Tracer’s family. Of his family, he thought happily--there had been thanks and warm dinners delivered to his house, labor and money supplied in small envelopes and sweaty afternoons, and so many hugs, all with the aim of trying to repay Winston for bringing back their girl, again, for cementing himself even deeper into their lives. His heart swelled when he read the little card that said “Winston Oxton” marking his table, Tracer’s cousin guessing that if Winston didn’t have a last name, he may as well just use theirs.

“Win?!” She looked at him wide-eyed, begging for help in her merry way. 

He grinned. “I have to take Lily’s--” 

She scowled. “Oh you do not!”

There were still little ways Winston could tell she wasn’t well. She hadn’t worn a tie, just a collared shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, under her jacket. She sat toward the back of the room, where it was quieter, and sometimes her eyes glazed over for a moment before she could shake herself back to the present moment. But she was engaged with life again, and she seemed to be better every day, and it was a joy to hear her laugh again, to see her zip around the kitchen, to find her clothes carelessly tossed into a pile. 

Tracer leaned back into the chair, still laughing. “Traitors,” she said softly, “the lot of you.” 

She took a sip of her beer again and smiled, and the music continued in perfect time. 

“Lena!” Her cousin raced from behind and touched her wrist softly, beaming when Tracer pulled her into a hug. “So ‘appy you could make it!”

“Sorry about,” Tracer indicated to her outfit, “all this.” 

“Oh, but you look beautiful!” Her eyes widened in delight. “Winston!” She, too, was one of the hummingbirds of the Oxton clan, and her mind tripped quickly over to him, throwing her arms around him, then turning to the woman behind her. “This is me ‘usband’s--god but that’s nice to say, innit--mum, Addy. Addy, this is me cousin Lena and Winston, there’s me uncles Teddy and Mark, and--Lily, where’s Clive?” 

Winston noted the way they always said things, so there was only separation from him being a cousin, a child, an Oxton, if he claimed it for himself. There was always room for one more at the Oxton table, and if you didn’t have a family, well, we have plenty of it to go around, and if Addy seemed surprised that her daughter-in-law’s cousin was a gorilla, she knew enough about the Oxtons to simply extend her hand to him and smile. 

Seconds were so long, sometimes, and years were so short. Time didn’t obey its own rules. The time he had spent with the Oxtons seemed more like seconds, and twenty seconds had seemed to take years. He looked down at the aviator’s watch on Tracer’s wrist. She loved that watch. He’d had the battery replaced while she was gone, and he looked down now to see its reassuring tick on her wrist. 

He reached his hand out to Addy, and smiled.  

__

No Oxton party had ever been a quick affair, and this was no different, the evening stretching ever on, and they plodded back to the house Winston was making home, whatever it had been in a former life, long before the rest of the family had been ready to turn off the lights. 

London took on a haze in the late night hours, times when the fog would start to creep in and Winston could see bits and pieces of why Lena found this city so magical. Why it was home. Lena looked around at the city in its most quiet hours as they walked, the hum of an occasional bus going by, the smell of late-night kebab on the air, and there was a sense of gentle contentment between them. 

Winston thought on these things as he stood in the kitchen, making a cup of tea before bed. The news of the last few weeks had been as discouraging as Tracer’s progress was encouraging. The world was changing, and didn’t need them anymore, and he felt them being pushed to the outer edges, with not so much as a thank you for all that they’d done. 

Maybe it was the wrong thing, to wish for thanks. 

“You’re tired.” Winston tried not to sound too overprotective, as Lena sat on the couch, sipping a glass of water, her jacket tossed over the back of the couch and her shirt unbuttoned to her chest, the bright white of her undershirt near glowing in the strange light of her accelerator. 

Tracer nodded, not bothering to argue a point they both knew was true. “I liked it, though. Felt like me old self again.” 

There was a moment of silence, and something hung in the air between them.

“Overwatch is gone.” He hadn’t said it out loud before, but it felt like something to tell Tracer, even though she already knew it. Something that had to be shared between them, like every other bit of pain and struggle in their lives. A wound that had to be opened to heal. “The UN disbanded it.” 

“Right.” She nodded, looking off at the window. “Did poor Ang up like a kipper, so they did. Should ‘ave been there.” 

Winston shook his head. “We couldn’t.” He sat down next to her, looking off into the quiet nothing that contained everything, all their hopes and all their fears. “And they would have just done the same to us.” 

And it was true, they would have simply stood with Mercy and been put on trial, browbeaten and forced to account for believing too much in something that had failed them utterly. 

Everyone responsible was dead or had slipped the leash. There were only the foolish and the good left. 

“She wouldn’t ‘ave ‘ad to do it alone.” She scowled a bit, and Winston winced at the truth of it. Tracer paused. “Should send Ang a card, at the least, a bit of choc. SOMEthing. ‘Eard she’s doing something in America, now.” 

Winston did not know how to reply that there was no chocolate assortment he knew of that said, ‘sorry you took the fall for all of us on global television.’

Tracer sat for a moment, leaned back against the couch, considering the turn the last six months had taken. “Thank you, Winston.” 

“For what?” 

She sat up and looked at him in disbelief. “What do you mean, for bloody what? You’ve only taken care of me every need for ‘alf a year, is all.” She shook her head and giggled. “Not many people’d do that, Win. Means something to me.” 

Winston placed his hand on her back. “We’re family.” It broke over his tongue, warm and golden, like the yolk of an egg, waiting to feed him. 

He hadn’t even known how hungry he was, until Tracer had come into his life. Until she’d given him a home and a family. Even now, he could not articulate to her how much she had given him. How he felt they were equal. 

“‘Course we are, Win!” She said, ignoring the emotion in his eyes. “‘Ave been for years! Don’t mean I can’t thank you for everything.” She patted his leg, and looked up at him, “I love you very much, you know.”

He felt himself momentarily overwhelmed, and simply hugged her a little closer to his side, sitting in companionable silence, knowing she would require no answer. Tracer never needed to hear the things she already knew from him. 

“What do we do now?” He broke the quiet, but did not quite say it to Tracer, did not quite say it to anyone. 

Winston had spent the last months finding Tracer, getting her back and helping her heal and easing her back into the world, bringing her home to London and making a place for her where she could recover. All of that had been his pleasure. All of that had been a goal he was happy to strive for. But now, she was functioning, and though she still needed him, the panic was gone. The fire had been put out, and now there were both left to stare at the blackened plain of what their lives had been, and to rebuild what they wanted it to be. 

It was exhilarating. It was terrifying. 

Tracer stirred a bit from her half-snooze and looked up at the ceiling. “Not quite certain on that score, Win. Going to get in the air.”

“Lena,” He laughed. “They might not let you keep your license. You can’t.”  

“There’s a lot of things they said I couldn’t do.” She grinned. “Get it back, watch me.” She stood up and stretched, scratching under the band of her accelerator. “‘Owever. Think it’s me bedtime. Ready to take this thing off, that’s for certain.” 

Winston nodded. “Mine too. Goodnight, Lena.”

“G’night, Win.” She started to walk toward her bedroom, and then turned back toward him. “I do know something, though, and I’ll tell you.” 

“What’s that?”

“Whatever we do next, we’ll do together.” She grinned and gave him a salute, whirling off to her bedroom. 

Winston shuffled to his feet and slowly climbed up the chains and ropes to his bedroom in the loft, gently removing his jacket and hanging it in his closet, neatly folding his shirt even as he slipped it into his dirty clothes hamper. 

Winston had lived in those twenty seconds for six long months. 

And now, he felt himself leaving those twenty seconds, like coming up for air from the bottom of a pool, the sun warm on his face. 

Winston laid down on his bed, the old clock by his bedside in a constant and beautiful tick, tick, tick, a perfect metronome to the new start of both their lives. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading this story!! If you enjoyed it, i hope to bring many more in the OW world, and would appreciate a comment!


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